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Topic: Need help with the Vito and Nick's clone (Read 1043 times)

Thanks to this forum I have jumped in to the world of pizza making. The amount of information on here is incredible and the contributions of many members are simply outstanding. Thank you for making my journey somewhat smooth!!

I have had a lot of success with my initial DD pizzas and also with Garvey's delicious thin crust recipe, however, my attempts at the V and Nick's recipe has me dumbfounded. Every time I make this the dough never seems to cook. I preheat my oven to 550 for an hour with a pizza stone and then down to 450 when I put the pizza in for about 10-12 minutes. I do not have a peel so I make the pizza on a perforated pizza pan and then place it onto the preheated stone. Garvey's recipe comes out perfect this way but the vito and nick's not good at all. The cheese and sausage cook perfectly but the dough is not good. What do you think I am doing wrong? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Mixed everything by hand with very little kneading. Placed into an oiled bowl and into my beer cellar which is approx. 62 degrees. Punched down after 4 hours and then again after 20 hours. Rolled out to 14" and placed on my perforated pan. Toppings added and then into the oven for 10-12 minutes rotating 180 degrees after 6-8 minutes. I have a 2nd ball that was in my fridge for an extra day that I am going to make tonight. Going to try parchment paper and will post pics and results soon. Thanks Garvey.

Wow do I need a peel. I got the pizza on my stone with the use of parchment paper and what a world of difference that made. The crust was a little chewy, but I had to ball the dough up after rolling it out once because it was shaped like an alien spacecraft. Also, the extra day in the fridge could have made a difference, but I will just have to keep experimenting.

Wow do I need a peel. I got the pizza on my stone with the use of parchment paper and what a world of difference that made. The crust was a little chewy, but I had to ball the dough up after rolling it out once because it was shaped like an alien spacecraft. Also, the extra day in the fridge could have made a difference, but I will just have to keep experimenting.

vic311,

I think a wooden peel would help. Experimenting and reading what has worked for other members is the best way to learn. I had many failures at times and still do.

Your pictures make that pizza look mighty tasty. Is that pizza made with the same recipe you used before? Did the texture come out okay this time?

Here are few things to consider, just looking at the recipe for the dough and your comments about cooking it:

1. 55% hydration is pretty high for Chicago thin/cracker-type crust, which is what V and N's pizza more closely resembles. I would definitely consider scaling this back to no more than 48%.

2. I have never used milk in my dough recipes, but I know Vito and Nick's does use it. I don't know if that has anything to do with the results you are getting or not. Baker's Dry Milk might be another way to go (which I have used and had good results).

3. You said you heat the stone at 550 degrees F in your oven on the bottom rack for 1 hour, then put the pizza on it and cook at 450 degrees F for 10-12 minutes, turning it 180 degrees about half-way through. Just from this procedure alone, here are some suggestions which you may want to try 1 at a time: a. don't turn the oven down to 450 degrees, keep it at 550b. don't turn the pizza half-way through - keep the oven closed and the heat in for at least 10 minutesc. consider a different rack. Oddly enough, the rack that works best in my oven is the top rack. I guess it's that "heat rises" thing.d. consider par-baking the crust for 4-5 minutes before adding the sauce and other toppings

If you look at the notes at the end of the dough formulation at Reply 205 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6368.msg117734.html#msg117734, you will see that I did not take into account the bench flour, which I estimated to be around 12%. Taking that amount of bench flour into account, the hydration becomes 49%. Of course, that number goes up when you account for the water in the milk, to a bit over 50%.

As you can see from the video below, the V&N dough is quite wet to begin with and there is a fair amount of bench flour used:

You can see how I arrived at my numbers at the outset, after viewing the video many times, at Reply 119 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6368.msg117149.html#msg117149. I think the critical factor may be the thickness factor. It is hard to nail that down when all of the measurement are volume measurements and there is no scaling of the dough balls. Adjusting the dough formulation in Reply 205 for 12% bench flour, the thickness factor for the 14" pizza is 0.05668. It may be a bit less than that because I did not use a bowl residue compensation but, any way you cut it, the crust is quite thin.

The texture has come out much better since using parchment paper to get the pizza directly onto the stone. The crust seems a little chewy but I don't mind it at all.

I think I am putting a little too much sausage on because the pizza turns out fairly greasy. I have not had the original V&N's in about 10 years so I really cannot compare but I might have to take a road trip soon to investigate.

The texture has come out much better since using parchment paper to get the pizza directly onto the stone. The crust seems a little chewy but I don't mind it at all.

I think I am putting a little too much sausage on because the pizza turns out fairly greasy. I have not had the original V&N's in about 10 years so I really cannot compare but I might have to take a road trip soon to investigate.